2. Theoretical Framework

In this chapter, we'll explore key elements of both instrumental and vocal lessons. Additionally, we are going to dive into the specific teaching approaches associated with each, drawing from previous scientific publications pertinent to our study. Finally, we are looking at different observation techniques.

2.1 Content of a music lesson

Before we can look at all the to be observed lessons and find the interesting differences and similarities, it is important to start at the beginning: What should be in a good music lesson? Even though we are going to look at piano and vocal lessons, we start a bit more general, and later on, zoom in into these specific instruments.

According to De Vree (2007), a good music lesson is based on ten guidelines. These guidelines do not really specify the structure of a good music lesson, but rather function as a starting point for the teacher to base their lesson structure on.

1. 1. The overall goal of the lesson is to enhance the musical abilities of the student.
   2. The teacher should teach in such way that students obtain musical autonomy.
   3. The way of working should be connected to the student and should be checked regularly.
   4. Making music is creating sound that is alive, this should be kept in mind.
   5. Learning to make music is based on a good musical imagination. What is needed to learn this, should be seen as one.
   6. The concentric way of learning should be emphasized, rather than the linear way.
   7. Making music = moving, movement should be included in the lessons.
   8. Old repertoire should be repeated and freshened up.
   9. Surprises and stimulating activities can help prevent boredom in the lessons.
   10. A prepared lesson is always better than an unprepared lesson.

When keeping these ten guidelines in mind, a good music lesson will be the result.

Hallam (2018) writes that you need to have a wide range of teaching strategies that you can adopt to meet specific needs, in order to be a successful music teacher.

McPherson & Hattie (2022) are stating that as a great teacher, you should be able to inspire your student to start learning. This is important, because behavior can only be changed in two ways, by manipulation and by inspiration. At the heart of great teachers, the desire to make a difference in the musical development of the student is found, and it is important to keep in mind that learning is seen as a journey and that development comes along the way.

Hattie and Zierer (2018) compiled a list of ten mindframes, that embody impactful teaching, McPherson & Hattie (2022, p. 125) reproduced it as follows: 

1. 1. ‘Impact
      1. I am an evaluator of my impact on student learning.
      2. I see assessment as informing my impact and next steps.
      3. I collaborate with my peers and my students about my conceptions of progress and my impact.
   2. Change and Challenge
      1. I am a change agent and believe all students can improve.
      2. I strive for challenge and not merely "doing your best."
   3. Learning Focus
      1. I give and help students understand feedback and I interpret and act on feed- back given to me.
      2. I engage as much in dialogue as monologue.
      3. I explicitly inform students what successful impact looks like from the outset.
      4. I build relationships and trust so that learning can occur in a place where it is safe to make mistakes and learn from others.
      5. I focus on learning and the language of learning.’

Because of the intensive research that preceded this list, these points can be used as distinguishing features for successful teachers.

Baker-Jordan (2004) writes about the theory of Herbart who states that there are three steps needed to learn new information: Preparation, Presentation and Association, and Generalization. Figure 1 explains these three steps:

Figure 1

Definition steps Herbartian Theory

As relation to what these steps contribute to de music lessons, Baker-Jorden writes that in preparation, repetition is key and that a new element in the lesson should be presented at least four times before you ask the student to work with it. In the second step, the new learned information is integrated in new material, at a very low level. Lastly, in generalization, the student gets more familiar with the new element and is able to use it as part of its musical toolbox.

2.2 Instrumental Teaching Strategies

All the information above is applicable to music lessons in general, not specifying any particular instrument. Hallam & Bautista (2018) created a list, containing the following skills, which can be acquired while learning to play an instrument: aural skills, cognitive skills, technical skills, musicianship skills, performance skills, creative skills, evaluative skills, self-regulatory skills. In order to formulate a curriculum for their students, teachers can use this list as a resource. Hallam & Bautista do not include the voice as an instrument but devote a specific chapter solely to vocal pedagogy, implying that there are other guidelines and lists that should be maintained during vocal lessons.

As my research concerns differences in certain instrumental groups, it is interesting to dive a bit deeper into the specified instrumental and vocal teaching strategies. From now on, when using the word instrumental, the voice is not included, to prevent confusion in the terminology.

Instrumental lessons used to focus mostly on learning new repertoire, but recently aims like playing by ear and improvisation are more and more accepted in instrumental tuition (Hallam 2018). In order to make progress in learning how to play an instrument, practice and commitment are required. Hallam (ibid) stated that ‘this is necessary for complex motor and cognitive skills to become automated so that players can focus on the musical aspect of performance, interpretation, communication and coordinating playing with others.’ Williams (2017) writes not only about the importance of practice, but about the importance of quality practice, including a guide with aspects relevant to practicing in a competent, constructive, and accessible way. Papageorgi & Kopiez (2018) add another importance to instrumental teaching and practicing, namely the need of maintaining mental and physical health. As they refer to Kreutz (2009), who found that a lot of music students weren’t aware of the importance of health responsibilities, they state that it is the teacher’s job to maintain this awareness. 

2.3 Piano Teaching Strategies

Piano is maybe one of the most played instruments at private schools, especially for beginner musicians. Often, basic findings in piano studies fail to arrive in the day-to-day classroom due to the lack of interesting information that can be applied. That doesn’t mean that these studies do not have value for the day-to-day practice (Parncutt & Troup (2002). A lot of interesting articles have been written about the important aspects of piano playing, which can be very beneficial for piano teachers in their quest to convey their piano pedagogy. For instance, Parncutt & Troup (2002) highlight the importance of keystroke, piano timbre, pedals, piano fingering, and the velocity artifact. They refer to Parlitz, Peschel, & Altenmüller (1998) as they write that in order to master the keystroke, pianist should also control the force and the resultant key velocity of their keystroke and not only the order and the precise timing. Other aspects as fingers or arm, leap trajectories and tone repetition are also found important to be discussed when talking about keystrokes. When looking at timbre, people often assume that it is the result of the velocity and how the key is pressed. Parncutt & Troup (2002) counter this and say that also other aspects as pedal use, note articulation, different perceptions from the audience, the perceived waveforms of the notes, visual perceptions, and the pianist’s own perception of the timbre are at play. When discussing the use of the pedal, Banowetz (1985) compared the sustaining pedal “equivalent to the vibrato of the singer or the string player” (p. 13). Schnabel stated that ‘pianists do not simply depress and release the pedal but take advantage of a quasi-continuous series of intermediate positions that allow for more or fewer dampers to clear the strings in different registers—part-pedaling (half, quarter, three-quarter, etc.), pedal squeezing, and flutter (or vibrating) pedal’ (Schnabel cited in Parncutt & Troup (2002) p. 292-293). Concluding with fingering, to achieve perfect fingering, a coherence of various physical, anatomic, motor and cognitive limitations, combined with interpretive considerations is needed. Because of the dependence on style and pianist and the complex coherence between these various aspects, a single best fingering for a passage is hard to determine and fingering is often not expressed as ‘right’ (ibid).

2.4 Vocal Teaching Strategies

It is known that the voice is an instrument inside your body, which cannot be seen during practice. This way, it differs from other instruments. ‘The vocal instrument consists of three essential components: the respiratory system, the vocal folds and the vocal tract (the cavity formed by the spaces above the larynx, namely, the pharynx and the mouth, which are some­ times complemented by the nasal cavity). (…) Together, their combined action determines the characteristics of perceived vocal sound in speech and singing.’ (Welch & Sunberg, p. 254). As the sound is connected to the internal cavities, singers struggle with the difficulty of not being able to hear themselves as others hear them and apart from that, must rely on bodily sensations to achieve the desired sound (Callaghan, Emmons & Popeil, 2018). It is crucial for singers to develop auditory perception, in order to alter resonance and correct pitch (ibid). Aside from the fact that it is important for the students, it is maybe even more important for vocal teachers to have well developed ears and even more well-developed eyes, to be able to diagnose if something is wrong with the voice or the body. And because of the unavoidable coherence between body and voice, vocal teachers should also possess knowledge of the health and physical wellbeing of the body, have an understanding of hormone cycles, and know the effect it has on the voice. Summarized, a vocal teacher should possess ‘a comprehensive knowledge in anatomy and physiology related to respiration, phonation, registration, resonation, and articulation’ (Bigler & Osborne, 2021). Respiration is connected to the motor of the voice, as it provides the air to make the vocal folds vibrate, but it also suppers the vowels and words a singer chooses to produce. Thus, an elaborate understanding of the muscles needed to activate the breathing system is required.

Additional to this, Bigler & Osborne (2021) also state that to be able to be a good vocal teacher, you should have basic piano and accompaniment skills to effectively facilitate vocalists in their repertoire. Meaning that as a vocal teacher, you should also be comfortable enough with playing the piano while teaching.

2.5 Personal connection to the voice

Singing has always felt like a much more tangible instrument, compared to other instruments. Singing is very personal and can make you feel very vulnerable. As your voice helps you to define who you are and how you are perceived by others, it is an essential element of self-identity (Welch & Sundberg 2002). Your body has an integrated network of nervous, endocrine, and immune systems and therefore, the voice production and reception have mood and emotion as central characteristics. ‘Whether we are feeling elated, relaxed, stressed, or threatened, each inner state is likely to be reflected in voice behavior and to be communicated to others and to ourselves’ (Welch, 2000b in Welch & Sundberg 2002, p. 265).

Students can also behave very reluctant and sometimes ashamed when something happens with their voice, or if they cannot produce the sound that you ask them to produce. Welch & Sundberg (2002 p. 265) cites Thurman & Welch, (2000) who states that ‘much voice behavior is not conscious. It is habitual and not readily accessible to conscious processes. It is also typically influenced (as well as being a reinforcement) by how we feel at the moment of voice use. Howard (1982, in Kemp 2004) looked into the sometimes reluctant behavior of vocal students and found that ‘identifying sensations to match the teachers' requests may be more demanding than other visible and touchable instruments’ and can result in more anxious and sensitive students. Welch & Sundberg (2002) and Welch (1985a, 1985b) add to this subject that the more complex the vocal task instructions from a teacher is, the higher the chance that the feedback is misinterpreted by the vocal student. Simpler vocal tasks are therefore more accessible.

As stated earlier, vocalists do not hear themselves as other people hear them. This makes it harder for them to assess if what they are singing is correct and results in a more dependent relationship between vocal students and vocal teachers, as the student needs the added sensation of their teacher in order to produce the appropriate sound (Howard, 1982).

Serra-Dawa (2014) investigated the influence of personality on the student-teacher relationship in one-to-one lessons. She found that ‘vocal teachers and student tend to behave more according to their personal and psychological characterization’, which may explain the sensations of vulnerability while using voice described in the text above. When you read the information above, some of the statements that I made into my introduction make more sense. The difference in the first note of the lessons and the vulnerability in vocal lessons can now be explained by Howard (1982) and gives more insight in the role as a vocal teacher. My presumption about the difficulty of giving instructions makes more sense when Bigler & Osborne (2012) explain that so many aspects come to play when giving vocal instructions.

2.6 Difference between vocal and instrumental lessons

Looking at the information above, it can be concluded that there are a lot of different aspects that should be considered during the instrumental lessons and vocal lessons. This can imply that there are a lot of differences between teaching voice and teaching other instruments and thus, maybe also between teaching voice and teaching piano. Burwell (2006) looked at the different approaches taken by vocal and instrumental teachers in higher education. As for my research, I’m interested in how both piano and vocal instruments are thought, Burwell’s research might be an interesting research to start with. In her study, she analyzed 67 lessons from 16 different teachers. 12 of these lessons were vocal lessons, the other 55 lessons were instrumental lessons, also including piano. She looked at the difference in lesson dialogue between literal and metaphorical vocabulary, and examined the dialogue devoted to interpretation, which was divided into music, instruments, or expression. Burwell published some interesting findings. First of all, she found that in vocal lessons there was more verbal dialogue about technique at the expense of interpretation than in instrumental lessons. Furthermore, she discovered that vocal teachers and student talk more about their health during the lessons, which is also confirmed by Bigler & Osborne (2021) as they state that ‘any knowledge that could help teachers promote and preserve the health of the human voice and body should be acquired’. Also, Burwell (2006) found that vocal teachers use more metaphorical vocabulary in their lessons, compared to instrumental teachers. Lastly, she discovered that when teacher and student talk about interpretation, there is more attention for the poetic or dramatic text, ‘at the expense of the discussion of music itself.’

She clarifies all these results according to the unique traits of singers: ‘The singer is her own instrument; the instrument is human, and therefore more sensitive and vulnerable than others, to change; the instrument’s mechanical apparatus is largely hidden from view; and the art of singing typically involves, in addition to musical and technical issues, a poetic or dramatic text which must be understood, internalized and communicated. These unique traits would seem to make a metaphorical vocabulary indispensable to teachers and students.’ All these findings correspond, one way or another, with the results showed earlier in this chapter. Burwell concludes that, if the voice is the most natural of all musical instruments, maybe instrumentalist can adapt the approaches used in vocal lessons to enhance their teaching practice. This last sentence is especially interesting for my own research, as I am also interested in the enhancement of instrumental and vocal lessons obtained by intertwining teaching approaches.

2.7 Feedback

In every lesson, teachers and students give each other feedback. Most of the times it is the teachers giving feedback to the students. ‘When asked to describe what is meant by feedback, teachers will often explain that it is a way of giving comments on what is being learned, answering student questions, giving an instruction or criticism, confirming that the learner is taking the right approach (or alternatively not taking the right approach), explaining the pros and cons of working in a certain way, or providing an assessment of work relative to some sort of standard or benchmark.’ (Hatte & Clarke 2018 in McPherson, Blackwell & Hattie 2022, p. 2). When asked to students, they would also add the ‘where to next’ feedback, which is not seen in the answer of the teachers. This difference in answers reflects why the topic of giving feedback is so important. John Hattie is one of the prominent scholars of feedback and he proposed a new concept of giving feedback, that includes multiple levels of giving feedback. This concept is called “Visible Learning” and contains three levels of giving feedback ‘for enhancing learning and achievement:

• “Feed back" compares a learner's current state with previous performance, such as pointing out improvements in the playing of repertoire since the previous lesson or attempt at the passage.

• "Feed up" is focused on the present and compares what a learner can do with a desired target state. Examples include critiquing a student's current level of playing and comparing this with an ideal performance once the work has been mastered.

• "Feed forward" focuses on illustrating the desired target state. Because it is aimed at what a student will be able to do in the future, it is the most desired form of feedback for students.

The three forms of feedback outlined above emphasize past, present, and future perspectives and are most successful when they enable students to understand how they are going now, where they are going next, and how they might get to the next level.’ (McPherson, Blackwell & Hattie 2022, p. 2).

Figure 2

Visual depiction feed back, feed up and feed forward

There are specific guidelines which should be kept in order to let feedback be effective. The feedback should be formulated on the appropriate level of the student, should encourage students to move forward, focus on the task, process and self-regulatory mechanisms needed to achieve the set goal and should include a clear indication of ‘where to next’. When wanting to implement and improve the quality of feedback, the following seven principles should be kept in mind(McPherson, Blackwell & Hattie 2022).

• Less monologue, more dialogue (Mc Pherson & Hattie 2022).
• Focus on improvement feedback.
• Don’t generalize.
• Ask the learner to tell you what they are doing, thinking, and feeling.
• Don’t confuse feedback with praise.
• Check to see if your feedback is heard, understood and actionable.
• Try another approach if you feel the learner isn’t responding.

2.8 Metaphors/Implicit motor learning/Imaginary

When using the voice, the physical motion is not visible. This makes it harder for the singer to correct itself as everything has to be done by internal feedback instead of visual feedback. When teaching voice, one can imagine that giving instructions based on this internal feedback can be challenging. As Burwell (2006) already discovered, vocal teachers use more metaphorical vocabulary in their lessons, compared to instrumental teachers. This can be one way of coping with the difficulty of not being able to see the instrument. Even though Burwell discovered some findings about the use of metaphors, Welch & Sundberg (2002) stated that this topic rarely has been researched systematically. Callaghan (1997) did find practice of three different types of imaginary evidence: visual, kinesthetic, and aural, however this research was not based on empirical data. When using metaphorical instructions in lessons to find physical leads, one can also speak of external focus: not focusing the instructions directly on the muscles, but on the desired outcome of the instruction. Wulf (2013 in Williams 2019) defines external focus as a focus on the intendent outcome of the action. ‘Research examining the optimal attentional focus for skill learning suggests that people who are instructed to focus on the intended environmental effects of their actions (i.e. an external focus) perform and retain (i.e. learn) target skills more effectively than those who are told to focus on the movement itself (i.e. an internal focus)’. (Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2008 cited in Williams (2019), chapter 2). Williams (2019) found that external focus has a positive effect on both learning and performing music. Williams formulate the following table, giving examples for internal and external focus relevant for multiple instruments and singers.

Table 1

Internal and External Focus for Musicians

As seen in table 1, some of the very distal external focus points are common in vocal lessons, such as imagining a narrative, or imagining the mood and emotion behind the music.

Another way of using metaphors as instruction is connected to the Implicit Motor Learning Theory. Implicit motor learning is ‘learning which progresses with no or minimal increase in verbal knowledge of movement performance (e.g. facts and rules) and without awareness’ (Kleynen et al., 2015, cited in Williams, 2019 chapter 1). Williams (ibid) writes about Robert Masters who states that implicit motor learning prevents the user of this theory from falling back into basic verbal instruction and thus losing the automated movements, in a stressful situation. Masters discovered multiple ways to access this theory:

• Using secondary tasks
• Errorless learning
• Analogy learning
• Marginal perception
• Change blindness

Analogy learning comes closest to what we are discussing in this chapter. William (2017) explains analogy learning: ‘Instead of giving verbal explanations, presenting a mental model of a new concept that is familiar to the learner (e.g. imagine the phrase cascading like a waterfall)’ (William 2017, p. 17). Williams (2019) concludes that Implicit Motor learning is a successful method for learning and performing music.